Part II – Consciousness – Written 2003

I begin this section almost a year after I wrote PART I. Upon the conclusion of PART I, I hastily wrote both a PART II and a PART III, which were as follows:

PART II

This will be rather hard to describe…

I have discovered that, by writing my system of ideas down as I am, I have categorized everything I believe in my mind and have accepted it. Once I actually documented all of it, all at once (Part I was written in six hours), and then reread it many times I understand “what is” better. This new section is basically to say, “I have realized this much and now have no more new thoughts.” Don’t be scared from that statement; there’s more to come, I just haven’t thought of it yet. It is a real rush to realize you only know so much…few people can do it. I now realize that I know that much, and what is said in “Part I” is nothing in comparison to what actually is. Luckily, I know I will think more and learn more, but now you will be thinking with me as I move along, instead of me helping you “catch up.”

For most you, this is probably not enlightening, as it shouldn’t be. Just know from here on out…I have no idea what I’m going to be saying. For me, the writing I am about to do will be as interesting as Part I is to the people who haven’t “really realized” what Part I means yet.

Let’s move on.

PART III

I wish I were a good enough writer to accurately describe what chi feels like. Though it is never the same, it is always basically the same. To say it feels like numbness would be untrue because it heightens all of your senses, though the entire body feels as if it is asleep. I am certain that pain would disappear when a person is at one with chi, but I know empathy is accentuated to a level beyond my comprehension. The entire universe looks new, and yet one knows it has been there forever. The easiest way to experience chi is to experience a form of intensity.

Hormones are a good example of a chemical reaction within the body caused by chi. External electrical impulses (whatever they represent) are interpreted by the person, who then sends electrical signals to organs causing them to manipulate certain chemicals, causing the person to feel/act differently. There are constantly reports of people lifting trucks off people to save their lives. And everyone knows what “butterflies in the stomach” feel like. When something scary happens and you get shivers down your whole body. When the hair sticks up on the back of your neck when you read something that blows the top right off your mind.

That’s chi. The situations change, the feelings aren’t the same, and yet if you look at them closely, you will find that there is one singular energetic feeling that encompasses them all. To harness this energetic feeling and use it is exactly what I am trying to do. I know where I want to go and what I want to do, but I am unsure how to get there.

I know that I have changed a lot recently. There’s this dream I have where I am standing in a large group of people and I have energy pouring off of me and I am just surging trying to control it all.

These passages were a direct backlash of my mind rejecting what it had come to understand; I have come to understand more than what I wrote there, and hope I can communicate it more effectively. This is a perfect example of the self-indulgent shit philosophers spew, and for that I am sorry. I will try to refrain from that as much as possible, as it is that we are seekers of truth, here. I have not come to understand the application of chi, at least not at this point, and it does say something about man’s nature in my forcing myself to describe something beyond my comprehension before I was prepared to – thankfully I stopped.

My beginnings here are not dissimilar to PART I in that I am back to the idea of transcendent objects; while my first premise of, “[transcendent objects are] manifested in the idea of a being that controls existence, whereas others believe it is energy, and some others simply believe that a transcendent object is indefinable,” I have further defined the idea of the transcendent object, and that definition has led me here. While I can not endorse the ideas of “God,” “Yahweh,” or “Allah,” any more than in PART I, I have redefined what they are. If any idea of an actual being (s) is true, then the being is based on at least two things – energy and consciousness. To best relate my idea, there is a need for some religious history, but it’s pretty boring so I will move through it quickly.

In the beginning, man became aware of both energy and consciousness, which he manifested into what his primitive mind could best accept. In the earliest of religions, everything that man consciously perceived was interpreted into a deity of some kind; there is a vastness of primitive polytheism across the globe: Africa, Greece, Rome, America, Ireland, India, and Middle East, to name a few. To my knowledge, the Jews were the first to interpret consciousness and energy as a singular, all-powerful being in Yahweh. This interpretation led to the downfall of first Western Civilization and eventually the world, not because of God but because of man.

Sadly, men like Jesus and Muhammad have reputations I think both of them would hate very much. Men with great connections to both consciousness and energy have done great things, and have interpreted these things as whatever they interpreted them as. While Moses and Abraham were prophets, Jesus somehow transcended man’s view and became a God among them. What is interesting about this is that the Christians were so close with their interpretation of Jesus. Often, it is not what man himself interprets energy and consciousness as, but what others interpret the interpretations to be. Gandhi once said, “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” If you put every great spiritual leader in a room together, they would all agree. If you did the same with their disciples, there would be war. This is not a new concept.

I feel for Muhammad more than any other leader, if only because he would be so dissatisfied with what happened with Islam. After only briefly studying Islam, I came to the conclusion that Muhammad was not done with the Koran when he died. His death was related to a seven year-old poisoning incident by a Jew, which is one of many reasons the Middle East is the way it is today. He began writing shortly after the event, but the writing is reflective of desperation – as if Muhammad was laying down only the basic laws for man to follow to get to a very basic level of consciousness. He did not have time to relate his ideas to the masses; he was going to die, so he made laws that they had to follow. Both he and Christ decided upon the fate of a people: while Christ gave man the choice to be sin free, Muhammad took away man’s choice by assuming his was superior, which it was at the time.

This brings me to Roman Catholicism, which I can credit to almost every societal problem that has come to exist in the last thousand years. Catholics had the same idea as Muslims – make a person afraid enough and they will do whatever they are told to do. The practice of fear-induced propaganda continues to exist today, and it is a shame that humanity has not fought back, though I feel it is only a matter of time. I’ll get more into this later. My biggest problem with Catholicism was their systematic insertion of a class system based on materialism, which was ironic since their Christ talked about how the rich are really poor and the poor are really rich. A prime example of this is the old Catholic practice of not eating meat on Fridays; an idea that has been smothered in the last half-millennia and now usually only applies to Lent. Its original application was based in exploitation since The Church told the people they could not eat meat, but could eat fish, since they needed protein. I believe this has at least a partial rooting in Catholicism having more taxation and control over fisheries on the Mediterranean but not farms where livestock was raised. The Church loves inventory, and I would be willing to bet they have more records than they will ever share with the world. If our age has taught us anything, it is that information is the most valued resource; religion knew this for a long time, that’s why they never said anything to the people about becoming smarter, only more faith-oriented.

To slow down the religion-bashing, I would like to say that I do admire Christianity, but I do find that the idea was corrupted by Catholicism. I love Islam, but it was corrupted by itself, as well. Religion that is based on a class system can not work, and this should be apparent by now. The idea that one human has a higher status based on some idea of relative “holiness” is absurd; humanity is slowly getting past this idea and realizing itself as a species instead of ethnicities, states, and religions. This moves us back into consciousness.

As man becomes more aware of each other, so they will become more aware of themselves. Originally, I thought my life is based on a constant receiving of information that is understood by my mind; when information is no longer understood, it is because the new information is too advanced for the information already received, which is to say that one must understand the external information. As I thought more about it, I realized that the information that must be understood is information that is already known. As Bruce Lee said, all knowledge is really self-knowledge. When I find that I can no longer understand information, the problem is not with the receiving of external information, but understanding the information that has already been received. At the same time, one can see the external idea without understanding it or the internal idea it is based upon. I think I need to break this down better, and so I will attempt to metaphorically explain the idea of consciousness as I understand it now. The best way I can think to explain consciousness is to use the idea of office buildings.

Imagine an endless field of office buildings, each having the same height. Each building is built on the same fundamental ideas of consciousness and energy. In order for the building to be operational, it must have power; in order for power to have any kind of purpose, it must have somewhere to be used. While existing independently, without each other, they have no purpose. Imagine that each mind occupies each building just as a person would. Each level of the building requires a certain amount of knowledge to gain access and use equipment.

An unconscious mind is one that is not aware that it exists. Few minds possess this quality, since even the most basic of brain function forces the body to remember its physicality by such basic functions as respiration and heartbeat. It is unlikely that any mind based in physicality could really be unconscious, though it could have unconscious aspects to it. As I find with many things, consciousness has levels similar to a building, one on top of another, unconscious being the foundation of the building. The unconscious is untappable by the self-conscious because of its very design to not be seen by the self-consciousness. There is a buffer between the self-conscious and unconscious that is commonly referred to as the subconscious. If the self-conscious is the first level of the building, and the unconscious is the foundation, the subconscious is the basement. It is where the information intended for the upper levels is stored and where most energy is received. It is also within the subconscious that the networking system is located.

Consciousness is the actual network within and between the buildings. Depending on the building, it transmits and receives certain amounts of information both based on the amount of information it has (how many levels in the building are accessed and how much storage in the basement) and how much power it uses to transmit and receive. While I am unaware of the connections between the unconscious and subconscious based on their inherent ideology to not let me understand, the connection between subconscious and self-conscious is fairly clear; a mind can not go from the first floor to the basement, but information can be sent between the two based on what the mind desires. There is a vast history of psychoactive substances being at the root of religion, and it is obvious that said substances both elevate consciousness and build new bridges between the self-conscious and subconscious, which may be the reason our society is so against them (the system of control does not want us to raise the bar). The problems arise when information is received from the subconscious and the self-conscious is not enlightened enough to understand. This is frustrating when one knows that by understanding the information, one can access the next level of the building, and if one could access that level they could easily understand the information. A mind must use its primitive information and technology to gain as much from the network as possible and interpret it as best as possible so it can gain access to the next level.

Obviously, the power element represents the idea of Universal Energy (chi); the internet represents a collective consciousness, a singular network between every basement of every building. Since this system is plugged into every building, it can access all the information in that building. Depending on how aware the mind in the building is, information is sent and received differently. Now, I know what everyone wants right now is the “proof” department of this as it applies in the “real world,” which I am sorry to say is difficult to universalize or even explain on any level. I will do my best for where we are right now.

Amongst people, there are various kinds of consciousness. Religions basing themselves in love, understanding, compassion, and so on is not coincidental – through understanding other beings, consciousness is expanded. Physical beings are inherently at a disadvantage because of our relative complexity compared to the actual Source of energy and consciousness. Since animals can see, hear, and usually vocalize to some extent, they have strayed from the original idea of communication without any kind of language. Ironically, language is the greatest enemy of communication; sensory perceptions are received by the self-conscious, not the subconscious. However, the substructure continues to exist, regardless of the mind’s awareness, and information that is received the world is transmitted back and forth from level to level, sometimes without its knowing. When something occurs and is received by the self-conscious, and has no explanation, it will immediately look toward the archives – the sub-conscious’ domain. This begins humans’ rationalization of faith.

Faith is a difficult word to define. I have come to realize that faith is actually based on the link between self and sub consciousnesses, and that a person’s faith is based on how comfortable he/she is with said link. At the same time, an over-understanding leads a mind to accept all information received from the network, which is not what should be done. The mind should be conscious of information received both through the network and through structure itself. While the amount of information received through inter-consciousness is not dependant on the amount of energy accessed, the processing of this information is very dependant on information. A physical being in itself is dependant on basic energy for survival – it needs certain chemicals to maintain its existence. Without nourishment on the most basic level (food and drink), the body will die, followed by the dissipation of the mind. This goes back to the idea of the buildings – though a building can receive and transmit information, it still continues to be a building, although it is linked into a greater system. The eventual goal of each mind is to leave the system and merge with the greater Source of power and consciousness; this event can occur when the building is either fully accessed or destroyed.

Let’s get back to the metaphor for a moment, concentrating once again on the structure of the building. Each building has the same capabilities, and these abilities are based in physicality except for the idea of consciousness. Even power: while chi is not a physical idea, it must be turned to jing to be used. Imagine that there is a power converter at each intake in each building that changes the chi to jing; every element within the building is dependant upon the power, and each knows that it is dependant on said power. The dependant variable, as always, is the mind and how it interprets. If the mind begins to only be concerned with what is physically perceived – food, water, sleep, et cetera – then it will have a harder time understanding the more important information aspects. Without the mind, a building has no purpose, and therefore there are no buildings without minds; at the same time, since man can not grasp the idea of a mind without a body, there may be minds without buildings to occupy, though it would be difficult for a building to understand another mind without it being “plugged in” to the power/communications network.

Moving away from the buildings, we are hit with the ever-present human looming of “what about…” Indeed, what about The Source? What is The Source? One could say that the power is simply there, and there is no Source, but there must be a source for the consciousness, because the very idea of consciousness dictates that there be some absolute of it, whereas the idea of power is more omnipresent. And we are back to God. It is easy to see how more primitive minds had such a problem grasping all of this – God is a much easier answer to cope with as a human. It is interesting that, for most humans, the two traits they share are both fear and laziness. I would argue fear is both more powerful and more prevalent, as I think most people would, though I think laziness is much more detrimental because it is self-imposed. While we must choose what it is that we fear, fear is influenced by things outside ourselves; imagine a child trying to touch fire – the child does not understand to fear fire until it experiences it. But the child still had to touch the fire, and still had to choose to act, and therefore while fear is stronger than laziness, it is heavily dependant upon it, for if a human is too lazy to experience, then what can they truly fear?

Let’s talk about society for a minute, since I stopped right around the Middle Ages. I sensed that the history lesson was getting boring and, to be completely honest, I grow tired of whining about the past. The reality of the world is simple now – it is what it is. Every idea that exists exists for a reason, whether or not that reason makes sense is up to the individual mind and his/her consciousness. There are many ideas in society that we choose to look down upon. Let’s check some out. My favorite one is homosexuality, if only because it’s a really cool history lesson.

If man has one tendency since before religion, it is war. Since the days of war, men have been considered those who are “made to fight.” This was a primitive concept based on primitive physicality; the new war, the one that approaches, is a war of information where all lines of boundary will be destroyed. But, as I said, since the dawn of time, men fought in battle. In the really old times, and even up to just a few centuries back, homosexuality has been practiced frequently on the battlefield. But its practice was generally not amongst consenting soldiers, but amongst the victors and the conquered. What better way to truly vanquish one’s enemy than to strip them of all masculinity and sense of control? It’s the worst kind of application of power and consciousness, and in my estimation it is the prime reason homosexuality has been looked down upon for the last two thousand years. But not everyone thinks homosexuality is wrong, so there’s not really a boarder there for everyone, so let’s try something new.

How about homeless people – I love talking about them. Everyone has an opinion but no one has a solution. In all actuality, there is no solution, because there will always be a mind that desires to not have a home or a job and simply exist from one moment to the rest (if there is any theory to substantiate a mind without a building, it would be based in homelessness), and as it is our nature as conscious beings, we should fully accept other consciousnesses choices. But we don’t. We can’t accept the idea of more than two people marring each other, or two people of the same sex, though it is interesting how sodomy laws in America often forbade male/male sodomy but permitted male/female or even female/female sodomy (this has both historical and Biblical roots). The whole system is really screwed up, if one thinks about it. If you’re rich, how do you feel about the poor? If you’re poor, how do you feel about the rich? Democrats and Republicans. Sexism. Liberals and conservatives. Racism. Children and adults. Family. Friend and foe. What is it that has brought us to regard ourselves is such ways? In a simple answer: ourselves.

Hopefully, by now, if you don’t hate society you’re at least questioning what it is we’re doing with it. Obviously, if I feel so strongly about archaic ideas like institutionalized religion, one can certainly ascertain how I feel about even more antediluvian ideas like war, and I will not even begin to talk about war because that is not what I am here to do. Our purpose is that of truth, and we must get back on our path.

Society has a lot of problems, and these problems are based in one thing – a lack of understanding. If people were simply more conscious of each other, they would not be able to hate each other; the connections would be too strong. George Carlin has an old bit about how everyone in the world should line up and walk in opposite directions, shaking everyone’s hand and introducing themselves; in theory, being either friend or foe would be impossible after this, since by knowing everyone one must simply accept it as what it is. It’s an interesting idea. I have often wondered about the levels of consciousness that man will achieve and what that will accomplish, or what problems it may cause. I fear it may be used in the wrong way, showing that once again, I am human, despite my frequent best efforts. Within my building, I know I access multiple floors, though I know I can not use all of the equipment within both because of lack of power and lack of knowledge. While I can know this idea of “collective consciousness,” I do not understand it. If I did, I would probably write a lot less. There are many arguments for collective consciousness, but all are dependant on the idea that collective consciousness exists (anyone who didn’t see how it was like faith now understands). Take the idea of deja-vous, for example. I have speculated that deja-vous is nothing more than perceptions being directed to the brain’s long-term storage before short-term memory, causing the mind to believe it has previously viewed what it is currently perceiving. However, I can personally say I experience deja-vous frequently, and I tend to notice it more around certain people, places, or objects. This can mean one of two things – the physical world gives off constant information that is processed by my mind and interpreted in various ways or I have a set idea of what everything is and base all perceptions on that. While I would say that I know many people who subscribe to the latter option, I would like to consider myself a free mind.

Basing the idea of Conscious in that of Energy, my theory is as follows. Throughout existence, there is a constant Energy that transcends physicality; while it is manifested in many ways, it can only be used by the Conscious. The reason for this is that, if a being does not know it exists, it can not know what exists outside itself. While Conscious would not function if Energy did not provide beings to use it, Energy would have no purpose if it weren’t for Conscious. This forces the idea that there is something greater than both Energy and Conscious, making many previous statements, while not invalid, insignificant in comparison, which brings everything back to Tao.

I got away from it for a while, because I know I am so unprepared for it. I am unsure of something, and I will write it only to express my wonder: is Tao the top level of the building or the absolute lowest level, below Conscious and Energy? It’s both, that’s why it’s Tao; I can at least grasp that. But now that Conscious and Energy are separated under a grander category of Tao, what else is there along with them? Certainly, there will be more Parts to follow this. Until then, we can try to explain only what it is we understand, and continue on our path of enlightenment.

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